Look, a free workspace!

Nowadays I mostly work with needle and thread, which can be done in the comfort of a bed or sofa or pretty much anywhere it's cozy and relatively cat free. That means I don't need a designated workplace like when working with e.g. metal, but I still do like to work with metal sometimes. It's a nice contrast, moving from embroidery floss and tiny beads to metal and other techniques that demand the use of tools in a way working with needle and thread doesn't.

So a workspace is important and I have to luxury to have one, or even two, in a room just for creating. For a long time, my sis had filled it with stuff she didn't have time to organize so it was hard even to try to get through the door. Nagging didn't work and I sure as hell wasn't going to clean up her mess. Well, now she has tidied up which means I can access my workspace without being frustrated by all the crap she filled the floor with. Which also meant I could see my workspace and the state it was in and had been in for more than half a year.

There's a fine line between creative chaos and clutter. Creative chaos is great: it means surrounding yourself with and emerging yourself in all your lovely supplies. Inspiring colours, shapes, textures and perhaps even scents. It's not supertidy, but it's more or less organized though it might not look like it for an outsider. It can also make you feel productive as it shows that things are happening here. But it can grow into the complete opposite. It can become clutter and clutter removes energy where the creative chaos can infuse you with it. Clutter hide things instead of letting you see them, even if they still are right in front of you. And the longer you let clutter grow, the worse it get as it is easy to abandon the workspace or find it hopeless to even start to untangle the mess.

So while I don't think clutter is the reason I've felt uncreative for a long time, it does add to the situation and this weekend I felt ready to do something about it. A long work day on Saturday gave me a boost of energy (yes, I do believe in the positive effects of exercise an manual labour, letting the body work invigorates both body and brain so not being very physically active, a day of farm labour can recharge my batteries even if it makes me physically tired). And on Sunday I managed to tidy up quite a bit, which also included sorting beads -- a great way to be inspired by colours and rediscovering beads you've forgot you had or put aside for projects that never were realised.

No before photos, but I can tell it looked worse than in these photos (the second set -- the first one's from when the room was new). That's more before crossing the clutter line. Just before, but still not too bad. No, nothing like it's been lately with more or less no free space at all, which is particularly bad if you want to solder or do any kind of metalwork. Either you end up setting something on fire or all the lightweight stuff you put away on the table bounces off it as you try to texture some pendants. So this is a huge improvement. Still need to put away the paint tubes and jars and sort a few things -- and thing of a better way to organize my tools or at least get a bigger box for them there on the table -- but there's open table space now. Places to work. I don't remember the table being that big! So much space!

Also tidied up the beading table (which once had nothing more than a tablecloth and fruit bowl on it so it could be used for boardgames, eating at and just generally invite friends to join). For some reason my half of the table has gotten smaller while my sis' side has enlarged... Not going to fight over it, though. At least not until I need that extra decimetre. That's her organized mess you can see beyond my paper plate, black box filled with pearls and the beading wire tower.

I didn't choose those vinyl tablecloths -- but free is not to frown upon.

Now the only thing remaining is getting more bead storage so I can't empty that cardboard box I call a bead box (sadly my chosen bead storing system is really expensive, but now that I began using it I want to keep it uniform) and finally decide to destash the culled beads. Some are nice enough to swap or give to someone, others are either very basic or a tad boring to gift someone with. Unsure about whether to sell the former or keep it for swaps and bead soup parties. It's useful to have a "swap stash" when you can't always buy new things, but it could also equal money to buy beads I want more.

But that's for another day. Now there's space to breathe and work and that should be enjoyed now instead of filling the head with new things to feel guilty about not having done. You must have time to enjoy the things you do, not just see the things still not done because there'll always be things to do, things you keep feeling you ought to do and feel bad about not having done yet.


And, no, I haven't forgot it's a meowy monday today. Coming soon!

~*~

Update: I reorganized the tools too. That part did look kind of messy in the first pic. I found a tray to put some of them in and just kept the hammers in the original "tool box". Also took out the knives and scissors from a box and added them to the tray. And tidied up the plier holder (which I also use for scissors etc).

Plus I removed jewellery from half of the shelves on the left side wall and filled them with paints, media, inks and glues instead so I now have them closer to me -- and I can see them all: I'd forgotten a few of those paint bottles...

Uhm, the paint is from when I painted the seaside pendant. As it's just acrylics, which are easy to remove, I haven't bothered to clean it up yet. Will do it next time I need the workspace instead. The pieces of blue tape are left from one time when I needed to measure something I think. Also something I haven't bothered to remove as they're A) easy to get off at any time and B) they don't bother me -- not until I show a pic of the worktable for everyone to see...

Twin bead lace bracelet

Curious to see something I've made with the Preciosa Ornela loot I won? Here's a bracelet I made when playing around with different ideas and designs for the twin beads. Originally I was sceptical of the crystal colour-lined beads, thinking I'd prefer solid colours or finishes, but in this design it turned out that the lining was a perfect way to get both colour and the illusion of open space along the "spine" of the bracelet.

For this bracelet, I used a very simple 2-needle technique. I would've wanted the twin beads to form more or a zig-zag pattern and will try to make some variations with bigger beads (bicones?), but in the end it looks good this way too. (I must say, I think it looks better IRL, being so sheer in colour and dainty in design, which the photo doesn't really do justice too.)

As so often there's no clasp yet. I'm looking for a nice, small one that'll fit and I find shopping for findings much more boring that going bead hunting so there aren't that many clasps to chose from in my stash...

If you wonder about the photo, it's taken with the bracelet put around a tapered beer glass. I find it's often a good bracelet display for photos as it's a) tapered so it works with many different bracelet sizes and b) clear. A bonus with the later is that you can always see the back of the bracelet too.

The actual photo set-up is a bit different from usual as the sunny days (even today when we good the most gorgeous sun shower) mean it's perfect to rig everything in front of the south-facing window at my sister's workbench. As you can see below. Not exactly very professional looking, putting the set-up on my sis's newly-sewn seeds (she just warned me to do it again today as the seeds are beginning to sprout), but it's the best access to natural light I have indoors and the colours and sparkle is so much better when using the sun rather than construction lights to light up jewellery and beads.

My workspace -- a humble creative chaos

Inspired by Jewelry and Beading and the question of what's on my worktable, I took a few snapshots of my worktables. Yes, I have two: one is half a diningroom table and one is half of a more proper worktable. I share the "bead room" with my younger sis, hence the half tables.

I also took a few photos after we just put all the furniture in. This was originally dad's workshop, very dark and cluttered, which he re-made as he made a new room for him in the stables. We no longer have much hens so he found a new way to utilise the space, getting himself a bigger and better place to work. The bead room, as I call it, was originally planned as a storage for hobby mags, dads work clothes etc, but me and my sis occupied it with our things instead. Pity I never took any pics of what it looked like before dad made our new room so you could see the change...

Anyway, this is what it looked like when we first moved our things there:


And this is what i looks like now, in my workspaces (the necklaces in front of chair in the second pic aren't mine, they're my sister's, my stuff is in the shelves to the left):

I should perhaps also add that I do a lot of beading in my bedroom so even there you'll find shelves packed with beads and findings.